Monday, May 20, 2013

As Crazy A Ballgame As You'll Ever See

Oh man, I hope you saw/heard this game today. And if you didn't, I implore you to find a way to listen to it after work because it was all kinds of awesome! Heck even if we wouldn't have won it would have been a good one, just with the back-and-forth of the score, the weird ways in which the Tribe got ahead, back-to-back jacks, guys caught stealing, Kipnis up in the air, 2-out RBI, blown saves, more blown saves and a walk-off home run. DAMN!

Today our pitching wasn't very good but our batters came through like gangbusters to erase every misstep the pitchers threw. This is pretty much how we were expecting our whole season to go! This spring the consensus was that pitching was going to stink and we'd only pull it out of our guys could hit like we think they can. I'm glad that turned out to not be true because while today's game was totally fun, the see-saw battle of bad pitching and good batting is exhausting!

Scott Kazmir just didn't have good stuff today. I was going to say he didn't have "his" stuff today but according to his record, he doesn't really have much stuff. Today's game wasn't much different from his first start this season. Today he went 3 innings and gave up 5. On April 20 he went 3 1/3 and gave up 6. His last outing he gave up 4 in 5 innings. I wouldn't say he's progressing.

BUT! Someone on that coaching staff got Masterson to turn back around, and someone got Ubaldo to pitch up to his potential so I have hope that Kazmir can be helped. Of course it's up to him. Let's have 5 hot starters, real soon Scott!

Matt Albers and Bryan Shaw were a good complement to Kazmir, as they were able to go a long 4 innings between them only giving up 2 hits (and striking out 5). Much better than Kazmir's 7 hits in 3 innings.

So then we had Vinnie, Perez and Smith. Sounds awesome, right? Except Vinnie gave up the tying run on a solo homer. *gasp* And then Perez gave up the go-ahead run on a solo homer *GASP!* And then Smith had to come in for the 10th with the score tied and gave up THE GO AHEAD RUN ON A HOMER!!! WHAAAAAAT??

I don't even know what to say about that mess, except I hope they all are assigned their own pink backpacks for a week. Cuz those guys today were very, very bad. Tsk.

Batting was interesting today. They scored 10 runs, and it was a free-for-all as to who was going to get a hit. Was it Bourn? Nope! Asdrubal? Argh. Santana? Once. Let's see what everyone did!

Bourn went 0 for 4 but he did walk once and then came around to score. He also reached on a throwing error and I think when he was on base he made Iwakuma pretty nervous! No stolen bases for Bourn today but you can bet he had good baserunning.

Kipnis is still absolutely on fire! Today he went 2 for 4 with a run and a walk. That's 15 hits in his last 10 games, 8 hits in this series, 4 runs scored in this series and a 5-game hitting streak!

Asdrubal didn't get a hit, but he did get the bat on the ball and grounded in to a fielder's choice to score Bourn at one point, so at least it wasn't all bad.

Swisher got a little surge today. Lately he's been having single-hit or no-hit games, but it was nice to see him ramp it up a tiny bit in a game where we needed lots of baserunners. He went 2 for 4 with a double, and came around to score once.

Santana wasn't the big bopper by any means today. He only went 1 for 5 but the one hit was his 13th double. He also came in to score a run after that. In the 9th he hit a line drive that the Mariners' first baseman snagged but then the pitcher pitched. Haha pothead joke! Santana being safe allowed the tying run to score. Wow!

Man, none of those guys got anywhere near 10 RBI! How did we score all them other runs??

Well first there's Michael Brantley, who continued his hot streak from yesterday (his dad really straightened him out, I guess?) He went 2 for 4 with a walk, came around to score twice and also had a RBI! Brantley's RBI came in the third on a single to right.

So now we get to the big RBI guys for today! First off is Ryan Raburn, He's So Good!

...He's so good he even made Mickey Brantley smile!

Ryan Raburn got a big long homer today, a good way up the bleachers (not Reynolds-far but pretty close!) He was only 1 for 3 on the day but that was a 3-run blast, yo!

Our man Drew Stubbs came in to pinch hit for Raburn in the 8th and popped out. In the 10th, Stubbs got on base while trying to bunt Brantley over. Mariner error - everyone is safe!

And then, Yan Gomes was up. Gomes had already hit a homer in the 2nd inning - a solo shot to follow up Raburn's. He was up with the score 8-7, the Mariners over the Tribe in the 10th, after the Tribe had lost the lead like 4 times already. Brantley was on second, Stubbs on first and there were NO outs since Stubbs had done such a dandy job getting to first and moving the runner over. Gomes could have bunted or hit a sac fly or something. Acho que não! Gomes got himself a 3-run homer instead to win the game by 2 runs. BOOM!

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There you have it! I can't believe we had such a crazy see-saw game against these Mariners. I LOVE it, though! What fun, huh? If we can pull this sort of thing off regularly this year, we're on our way to someplace important.

Tomorrow we face dem Tigers, who are presently 2.5 games behind us. I say BRING 'EM ON!! It'll be Kluber versus RHP 3.98. I don't know how it's going to end up but I can guarantee you it's going to be hella fun.

See you there!

Radio Chatter:
"Seems like every day a different player is taking the baton and running with it."
- Tom Hamilton

"Pitching coach Carl Willis and a Japanese translator out to the mound...to see if Iwakuma has a stiff neck, because he got yanked on those last two."
- Tom Hamilton on the back-to-back jacks

"I understand the interpretor for Iwakuma, but who is going to translate the backwoods Carolina drawl of Carl Willis for the interpreter?"
- Tom Hamilton

"I believe Tom mentioned the word donnybrook before? A barn burner? We may be heading that way."
- Jim Rosenhaus

"The speed makes everybody jumpy on this infield."
- Jim Rosenhaus

"Whoever goes down there, and comes out of Arlington and says 'Man that was fun'?"
- Tom Hamilton

"About the last guy in the ballpark that you thought would take you deep is Endy Chavez."
- Tom Hamilton

"This is about as crazy a ballgame as you'll ever see."
- Tom Hamilton

"Eric Wedge is probably wondering what else can he see in a place he used to call home."
- Tom Hamilton is talking just to talk at this point